Lead Chops

[zachman]

Had to learn his 12 bar chord progression @ 10:33. Pretty nifty!
How he explains while playing through the whole thing, is amazing to me.

Dude is the Real Deal

 

[Derek S]

Frank's facial expressions have always been killer, he totally feels the music - luv it!!

 

[Sapient]

 

[dslman]

Frank's facial expressions have always been killer, he totally feels the music - luv it!!

His expression is like... will there be anything else?

 

[Barfly]

Your foundation: Practice

Learn cool licks off of songs. Learn simple favorite solos. Even if you can only figure out 50% or less
it'll add up eventually.

And something I always thought important: Immerse yourself in the music of the
guitarist or several that you love. I would listen to hours of my favorites. My brain
would absorb where I should try to be going when I solo...

Maybe a little advanced, but: try once in a blue to write a lick... I'd sing a lick and
then sit there and try and figure out the notes. Then when I had that I'd try and
figure out in what type of a song or section I could apply it in. I'd jam to music and see where it would fit..


then practice some more.

 

[WellBurnTheSky]

Wanna work purely on your technique ?
All you need is this and a metronome. And LOTS of time and patience and dedication:



This is awesome purely to build the tools (ie the techniques), then work on learning some stuff note-for-note. I love to work on Randy Rhoads stuff, he had great licks and an awesome phrasing.

 

[junk notes]

Dude is the Real Deal

Absolutely! He definitely earned those Lead Chops. After a killer day at school I would see him (or hear him in the room, as I was walking down the hallway) in one of the performance rooms, working on his lead chops and techniques. Sometimes incorporating what we had learned that day... and that he was using a drum machine placed on a stool.

 

[zachman]

 

[zachman]

His expression is like... will there be anything else?

 

[Lt.Dan]

I did think of one other thing that really helped me learn lead playing. Jimi Hendrix casually saying " it's all in the rhythm". That couldn't be more true if your looking for a soulful solo vs a technical solo. But not knocking technical, it's an art as well if that's what moves you.

 

[RandallPink]

I read an interview with Miles Davis once where he said 'don't practice - play!'. I suppose that's OK if you're a genius but I reckon even he must have started out learning his scales. Also I reckon he was a bit like Billy Gibbons in that it doesn't serve you well to rely too heavily on a single word he says.

Currently reading his autobiography, and yea, he says that, but you're right, he had long since learned, scales, etc. He had a decade of lessons and playing with people nearly every day as a child up until he left home for Julliard in NYC to hook up with Bird and Diz. Easy to throw out that type of advice after years of eating, sleeping and breathing music 24/7.

 

[Ramo]

Hi All, I'm looking for suggestions to improve my lead playing. How do you guys go about besides scales and exercises. Would you recommend paying an instructor, something like yousician (not doing yousician), watching youtube specific videos for certain technique ie sweep picking, fret board tapping etc. or a combination of the above? I've been playing for about 15 years now but looking to take my playing to the next level. Mainly interested in 80s shred, slash/gilmourish leads, and some blues licks.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Im not great lead player but what i usually do js get the backing tracks and jam on it and don go for what you know try find way without using specific scales. Just find notes and try to make it work.

 

[MarshallLover12]

Idk if this has been mentioned in the thread yet, but I think one of the largest differences between just improvising scales for a solo vs legendary solos (especially considering he mentioned Gilmore/80s leads) is the use of the bend vibrato. If you try to copy some of the greatest solos of those categories, you'll realize nearly all of them use bend vibrato liberally. The bend vibrato is the best thing for "soulful" and "melodic" solos.

 

[EndGame00]

Any Rick Graham and Shawn Lane videos...

for math rock playing... Ichika Nito...

 

[Shawn Kawvey]

..

 

[gustavowoltmann]

I am intersted in this type information, But I have some question about this. I think, You should give answer my questions. Gustavo Woltmann

 

[ricksdisconnected]

Rick Graham

this som bitch makes everything look to easy. one hell of a guitar player/teacher too.

 

[axe4me]

I do the "spider" exercise that I learned over 50 years ago before I play.

Warm ups are extremely important in preparing to play.

I play chord passages BEFORE doing most lead patterns.

I'm also VERY conscious of fret spacing.............I rarely fret jump and have an economical playing style.

Fret bends are important.

Speed isn't as important IMO..........see David Gimour.

Neil Giraldo & Keith Scott are almost perfect.

Bryan Adams writes songs that have melodic guitar.

 

[Sg-ocaster]

What I did when I was younger was play along with records of my favorite players. Id rewind the solo sections and not copy but try to emulate their style and vibe. Id also listen to ALLOT of blues players and play the blues. I used to practice at times up to 12hrs a day with breaks here and there but pick it up put it down pick it up again.
But rambling aside......... #1 asset IMHO is perfecting ones vibrato......blazing foot on the vocal monitor speed runs are cool and al, but nothing puts YOUR stamp on a lead like singing controlled vibrato. A perfectly vibratoed stretch is worth 100 notes when you can milk all that sustain out of it. The way you vibrato makes the differance between weather the guitar is Singing, Wailing or Screaming. Same note can be manipulated differant ways. Bend it and smoothly wiggle it for smooth singing sustain....maybe over stretch it and drop it down to a whole step bend and shake the shit out of it for Screaming agression.......just keep learning differant ways to vibrato them notes and were to use it. Add in a few speed burst and know were to land in your scales and your golden.
BTW all those guitars players axe4me listed are all vibrato players.